The figure in white collapsed like a tossed bundle, into a chair. It
seemed that the woman ceased to breathe. In a second the peculiar
freshness of her beauty had shrivelled as if scorched by a rushing
flame. Only her eyes were alive. They moved wistfully from Peter to
Vanno, and from Vanno to the half-open door, as if seeking mercy or
escape. She looked agonized, broken, like a fawn caught in a trap.
Peter turned to Vanno. "This is the girl who ran away from our convent
with a man," she said crudely. "As she's here in the house, how did Mary
come to be suspected?"
"That is my sister-in-law, Princess Della Robbia," Vanno answered. As he
spoke his forehead flamed, and his eyes grew keen as swords. His look
stripped Marie's soul bare of lies.
She held out her hands, but there was no mercy for her then in either
heart. In a moment the two had judged her, with the unhesitating cruelty
of youth. Peter's eyes narrowed in disgust, as if the white thing
cowering in the chair were a noxious animal, a creature to be
exterminated.
"I understand too, very well," she said slowly. "Horrible, wicked woman!
You put the blame of your own sins on my Mary, to save yourself, and
like the saint she is, she let you do it. But I won't. God sent me here,
I see now. You've got to confess, and right my girl."
Tears fell from Marie's eyes. Her face quivered, then crinkled up
piteously as a child's face crinkles in a storm of weeping. "Shut the
door," she stammered between sobs.
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